Awesome. The pope has arrived in the UK. That’s just what this country needs — a bill to the tax­payer of upwards of £10 million so a paedo-​​concealin’ old bloke can pat­ronise us all with his out­dated moral code and flag­rant dis­regard for human rights, even though only a quarter of us act­ively support the visit, at a time when science funding is about to face mon­strous cuts. Bril­liant!

To cel­eb­rate, I thought I’d take a look at what the Bible had to say about drugs. Obvi­ously, I’m no theo­lo­gian, so I’m basing this post on the inter­pret­a­tion given by GotQues​tions​.org (GQ from now on), who:

Seeks to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ by providing bib­lical, applic­able, and timely answers to spiritually-​​related ques­tions through an internet presence.

Their website looks to be quite a big deal, prob­ably getting over 100,000 pageviews a day, so who better to spir­itu­ally guide us on our quest for inform­a­tion? Let’s get started…

The Bible doesn’t have any­thing to say about drugs expli­citly, however drug use is covered within the scope of other, broader teachings.

“…some­thing some­thing some­thing complete!”

Rule #1 - Don't break the law

Everyone must submit himself to the gov­erning author­ities, for there is no authority except that which God has estab­lished. The author­ities that exist have been estab­lished by God. Con­sequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has insti­tuted, and those who do so will bring judg­ment on them­selves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring pun­ish­ment on the wrong­doer. There­fore, it is neces­sary to submit to the author­ities, not only because of pos­sible pun­ish­ment but also because of conscience.

Romans 13:1 – 5

So, that imme­di­ately rules out any illegal drug use, lest an “agent of wrath […] bring pun­ish­ment”, so that’s a “No” to can­nabis, LSD, ecstasy, heroin, etc! GQ help­fully offers up this snippet of wisdom, in case we feel the laws are unjust:

Con­trary to popular belief [what?!], simply dis­agreeing with a law does not con­sti­tute a license for breaking that law.

Can­nabis should be legal, I hear you scream! But what about alcohol and tobacco, I hear you ask? Hypo­crisy! Well, our friends at GQ have already thought of that:

Many have argued that marijuana does not warrant pro­hib­i­tion. They contend that smoking pot in defi­ance of the law is jus­ti­fi­able on these grounds and in light of (what they per­ceive to be) the hypo­crisy of out­lawing weed while allowing nicotine and alcohol con­sump­tion. Those who argue this point may be sincere in their con­vic­tion, but they are mis­taken non­ethe­less. Heart­felt disdain for the law does not justify impunity towards it, as our Lord Himself made clear. While rebuking the Phar­isees for turning the Law of Moses into an excess­ively oppressive yoke, Christ still required His dis­ciples to submit to their unfairly harsh demands (Matthew 23:1 – 36, espe­cially 1 – 4). Dutiful sub­mis­sion to authority and patient per­sever­ance through unjust suf­fering and/​or per­ceived unfair­ness (1 Peter 2:18 – 23 [Partly quoted below]) is God’s high standard for us – even if that means having to abstain from marijuana in com­pli­ance with “unfair” legislation.

Here’s the coolest bit of the Bible they ref­er­ence to support their point, so you don’t have to go looking it up:

Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and con­sid­erate, but also to those who are harsh. 19 For it is com­mend­able if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suf­fering because he is con­scious of God.

1 Peter 2:18 – 19

Right, ok. So breaking the law is bad, no matter how unjust we think it is. Fair enough. Surely then, we can smoke a bit of weed in The Neth­er­lands or enjoy some coca tea in Bolivia, or consume some legal highs? Right? Right?!

Wrong!

Rule #2 - Don't harm your body

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone des­troys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

1 Cor­inthians 3:16 – 17

Everyone knows drugs are harmful. In fact, here’s an old graph listing 20 dif­ferent drugs ordered by the harm they cause. You’ve almost def­in­itely seen it before.

Notice how no drug in that graph has a harm rating of zero, and according to GQ:

Beyond stew­ard­ship, as Chris­tians, our bodies are not our own. We “have been bought with a price” (1 Cor­inthians 6:19 – 20), not “with per­ish­able things like silver or gold … but with pre­cious blood, as of a lamb unblem­ished and spot­less, the blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:17 – 19). Having bought us with His own life, Christ has delighted to create in us some­thing entirely new, some­thing some­what bizarre. By indwelling us with His Spirit, He has turned us into organic temples of sorts. So now, caring for our health is not just a matter of good stew­ard­ship. It is a matter of rev­er­en­tial piety. To pollute or harm our bodies is to desec­rate the House of God (1 Cor­inthians 3:16 – 17 [The bit I quoted earlier]). This is both won­drous and terrifying.

GQ also talk about a number of indi­vidual drugs and the damage they cause. Here’s what they have to say about cannabis:

Marijuana, while being the least harmful of all of the illicit drugs, is still poten­tially lethal. Marijuana enthu­si­asts (“pot­heads”) take comfort in the fact that, unlike most other illicit drugs, it is seem­ingly impossible to fatally over­dose on weed by means of normal con­sump­tion (i.e. smoking it). But this does nothing to diminish the poten­tially fatal risks of lung cancer, emphysema, and other forms of chronic obstructive pul­monary disease (COPD) caused by marijuana smoke. While marijuana can be ingested without smoking it, thereby elim­in­ating these risks, there still remain neg­ative physiolo­gical and psy­cho­lo­gical con­sequences including damage to the repro­ductive system, the immune system, and cog­nitive ability.

At this point I was won­dering what their guid­ance was on alcohol but they don’t seem to have men­tioned it. That’s odd, what with alcohol being ranked fifth most harmful on that graph above. Looks like I’ll have to come to my own con­clu­sions without GQ’s help then! Let me think for a moment…

Ok, got it. In John 2:1 – 11, Jesus turns water into wine:

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his dis­ciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

“Dear woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.”

His mother said to the ser­vants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for cere­mo­nial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

Jesus said to the ser­vants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the ser­vants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bride­groom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

This, the first of his mira­cu­lous signs, Jesus per­formed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his dis­ciples put their faith in him.

John 2:1 – 11

Crikey, how about that then! If Jesus himself not only con­dones drinking wine but prac­tic­ally busts out a keg, then alcohol must be the excep­tion to the rule, despite the massive objective harm alcohol causes, right? I know what you’re thinking — one bible quote doesn’t neces­sarily mean that’s the case. What about other evid­ence? Well, there’s also the Cath­olic belief in tran­sub­stan­ti­ation, which:

means the change of the sub­stance of bread and wine into the sub­stance of the Body and Blood (respect­ively) of Christ in the Eucharist, while all that is access­ible to the senses (acci­dents) remains as before.

Wiki­pedia on Tran­sub­stan­ti­ation

For starters, that’s what Cath­olics lit­er­ally believe. The wine they use in church has *lit­er­ally* become the blood of Christ, despite appearing to be wine and retaining all the prop­er­ties of the wine, including alcohol content. The fact that Cath­olics not only drink this for­ti­fied Jesus-​​elixir routinely, and also that wine was selected by Christ to represent/​become/​whatever his blood both support my con­clu­sion that alcohol is fiiiiiiine com­pared with the rest of the evil drugs, according to the bible and common church practice.

As I men­tioned pre­vi­ously though, I’m no theo­lo­gian, so I welcome other people’s thoughts on my con­clu­sion in the comments.

Here are some final words of wisdom from my spir­itual guides at GQ, this time on addiction:

As for drug addic­tion, not all illicit drugs are phys­ic­ally addictive. Nev­er­the­less, they are all psy­cho­lo­gic­ally addictive. While most people are familiar with phys­ical addic­tion – the pro­gressive con­di­tion whereby the human body becomes phys­ic­ally dependent upon a drug in order to func­tion prop­erly – psy­cho­lo­gical addic­tion is less well-​​known. Psy­cho­lo­gical addic­tion is an enslave­ment of the mind, often char­ac­ter­ized by obsessive tend­en­cies and a lack of desire to quit. While phys­ical addic­tion brings the body into sub­jec­tion, psy­cho­lo­gical addic­tion brings the will into sub­mis­sion. Users tend to say things like, “I could quit if I wanted to, but I just don’t want to.” This atti­tude tends to ensure a long-​​term pattern of drug use whereby users become devotees in defi­ance of a very poignant bib­lical prin­ciple. The fact is, no one can whole­heartedly serve two masters (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13). Any time spent kneeling before the god of drugs [Best god freakin’ ever!!1] is time spent with your back towards the God of the Bible.

Fant­astic stuff.

Finally, be sure to take a look at what neur­os­cientist and philo­sopher Sam Harris has to say about Reli­gion & Drugs.

Here’s the link to the GQ page I’ve been quoting from, so you can bask in its glory.